Of course there was also no rule saying that chess functioned on a restrictive rules system and a lot of evidence that it instead functioned on a permissive sys

Of course there was also no rule saying that chess functioned on a restrictive rules system and a lot of evidence that it instead functioned on a permissive system. Which would invalidate the "no rule says I can't" argument. (when designing a game's rules, "restrictive" means the approach is "everything is permitted by default, unless explicitly restricted", while "permissive" means "everything is forbidden by default unless explicitly permitted" -- if we assume that chess is a restrictive-rules game, we can similarly mate in one from almost any position by simply inventing new pieces with unusual abilities and declaring that "the rules don't say you can't!")